Profile:
Mass: 5,972,190,000,000,000 billion kg
Equatorial Diameter: 12,756 km
Polar Diameter: 12,714 km
Equatorial Circumference: 40,030 km
Known Moons: 1
Notable Moons: The Moon
Orbit Distance: 149,598,262 km (1 x Earth's Distance to the Sun)
Orbit Period: 365.26 Earth days
Surface Temperature: -88 to 58°C
Earth Information
Earth's Moon:
The Soviet Union's Zond 8 that circled the Moon in October of 1970, capturing Earth's moon from an unfamilier angle. Image Credit & Copyright: Galspace
Our Home
Planet
Image of the Earth. Image Credit & Copyright: Wix.com
10 Need-to-Know Things About Earth:
-
If the sun were as tall as a typical front door, Earth would be the size of a nickel.
-
Earth is the third planet from the sun at a distance of about 150 million km (93 million miles).
-
One day on Earth takes 24 hours (this is the time it takes the Earth to rotate once). Earth makes a complete orbit around the sun (a year) in about 365 days.
-
Earth is a rocky plane with a solid and dynamic surface. What makes Earth different from the other rocky planets is that it is also an ocean planet: 70 percent of the Earth's surface is covered in oceans.
-
The Earth's atmosphere is made up of 78 percent nitrogen (N2), 21 percent oxygen (O2) and 1 percent other ingredients.
-
Earth has one moon. Another name for a moon is satellite.
-
Earth has no rings.
-
Many orbiting spacecraft study the Earth from above as a whole system and together aid in understanding our home planet.
-
Earth is the perfect place for life as we know it.
-
Earth's atmosphere protects us from incoming meteoroids, most of which break up in our atmosphere before they can strike the surface as meteorites.
Earth, our home planet, is the only planet in our solar system known to harbor life - life that is incredibly diverse. All the things we need to survive exist under a thin layer of atmosphere that separates us from the cold, airless void of space.
This scene looks west across the Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA, Planet Earth. Image Credit & Copyright: Babak Tafreshi
This complete view of Earth at night is a composite of images collected during April and October 2012 by the Suomi-NPP satellite. Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, NOAA NGDC, Suomi-NPP, Earth Observatory,
Our moon makes Earth a more livable planet by moderating our home planet's wobble on its axis, leading to a relatively stable climate, and creating a tidal rhythm that has guided humans for thousands of years. The moon was likely formed after a Mars-sized body collided with Earth and the debris formed into the most prominent feature in our night sky.
To learn more about Earth's moon, click on the button below!
Earth: The Plant Hosting Life
Earth is the only planet in the universe known to possess life. There are several million known species of life, ranging from the bottom of the deepest ocean to a few miles into the atmosphere, and scientists think far more remain to be discovered. Scientists figure there are between 5 million and 100 million species on Earth, but science has only identified about 2 million of them.
Earth is the only body in the solar system known to host life, although scientists suspect that other candidates — such as Saturn’s moon Titan or Jupiter’s moon Europa — have the potential to house primitive living creatures. Scientists have yet to precisely nail down exactly how complex life rapidly evolved on Earth from more primitive ancestors. One solution suggests that life first evolved on the nearby planet Mars, once a habitable planet, then traveled to Earth on meteorites hurled from the Red Planet.
